


Kiss me, Hardy!

by sapphirebluerubyredroses



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-06 05:17:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13404264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphirebluerubyredroses/pseuds/sapphirebluerubyredroses
Summary: “'Kiss me, Hardy'?” Keith finally gasped, sweat dripping down his back and off of his chin, his eyebrows smashed together.Lance's brows followed suite, his own workout shirt drenched in sweat. “What?”“That's what you yelled. 'Kiss me, Hardy'. What does that even mean?” Keith straightened, his arm falling to his side. He wiped at his forehead with the back of his arm, confused and irritated that he was confused.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just a "fuck it" kind of fic that has been rattling around my head after finishing Code Name Verity. So, have a fic, and I hope you enjoy it.
> 
> Disclaimer: Any quotes and descriptions from Code Name Verity belong to Elizabeth Wein.

“Kiss me, Hardy!” Lance shouted at the top of his lungs in a horribly butchered British accent as he rushed Hunk, tackling him to the floor in a heap of gasping laughter and teenage boys.

The statement was nonsensical, unrelated to the situation at hand. Keith decided it was probably just another reference he didn't understand, another black stain on the social skills of Keith Kogane, half-galra and red paladin extraordinaire. Hunk's name wasn't even Hardy! Hardy wasn't even a name where he was concerned.

This time, Lance didn't immediately launch into an explanation as he had so many times before. It probably had something to do with that fact that he was wrestling with his best friend who was at least twice his size, but somehow still winning. Pidge stood at their sides, commentating as they rolled passed her, and obviously not taking the time to explain either.

The phrase remained lodged in the back of his mind for hours, days really, just replaying over and over again. ' _Kiss me, Hardy_!' echoing through his memory with Lance's shout. No other references Lance had made had ever stuck to him as hard as this one had. Maybe it was the minimalism of it. Or maybe it was how out of place it felt in the moment. Or maybe it was just because of the words themselves. 'Kiss me, Hardy!' as if that were a suitable battle cry, the last desperate attempt before the end.

He wasn't sure, and that bothered him. Why would someone say that at all? Why would that be a quote from anything? Why would Lance yell it running into a play fight in the first place? The fact that he didn't understand ate at him until he finally decided to ask.

“' _Kiss me, Hardy_ '?” Keith finally gasped, sweat dripping down his back and off of his chin, his eyebrows smashed together.

Lance's brows followed suite, his own workout shirt drenched in sweat. “What?”

“That's what you yelled. ' _Kiss me, Hardy_ '. What does that even mean?” Keith straightened, his arm falling to his side. He wiped at his forehead with the back of his arm, confused and irritated that he was confused.

“Oh!” Lance's eyes brightened as he straightened, mimicking Keith's movements before sinking to the floor and flopping onto his back. “So, there was this book I read back on Earth. Just on a whim, you know? Trying to impress this girl who really liked to read and recommended it to me. I just thought I'd read the synopsis or something because, like, World War II? Not really in my realm of interests, but I totally got into it. Like seriously got into it. Hunk can vouch. I read it three times in the same week because I couldn't get enough. Anyway, it's about this lady pilot which was really rare back then I guess, and this lady spy which was even rarer.”

Keith listened intently as he gushed about a book that he had never heard of. Torture and shot down planes and double agents and red lipstick. He'd never read anything like what Lance was describing, something fantastical and brave. Like Lance had said, it wasn't something that was in his realm of interests either, but the more Lance spoke, the more he longed for the easy access to libraries and electronic copies of books that had been afforded to him on Earth. He hadn't been much of an avid reader while he was at the Garrison, never had the time, but once he'd gotten out... Well, there wasn't much to do in the desert when he wasn't actively searching for answers to a lost brother. He thought that perhaps this would have been a book he would have enjoyed too.

“And like, so that quote, ' _Kiss me, Hardy_!' is mentioned a couple times in the book. Just like ' _Fly the plane, Maddie_ ' which could totally apply to us if you changed the name. Fly the plane, Keith.” He giggled to himself quietly, amused at his own ingenuity. “That one was always to keep the pilot moving, to keep her going kind of, to focus her. At least to me. ' _Kiss me, Hardy! Kiss me,quick_!' is the other one that stuck with me though. It just rattled around in my brain for weeks. There's just something about it. I think it was probably what happened in the book. So, there's ' _Kiss me, Hardy_ ' and then there's ' _Kiss me, Hardy! Kiss me, quick_!'. That one was used just as the pilot was trying to save the spy, but they knew she wasn't going to get away. And the spy heard the pilot crying and recognized her! Imagine it! Knowing your best friend so well that you can know them just from the sound of their crying. The spy said something about best friends too. ' _It's like falling in love, discovering your best friend_ ', I think. I can attest to that. It really does feel that way. Anyway, so the spy is about to get carted off, recognizes the pilot, and yells, ' _Kiss me, Hardy! Kiss me, quick_!', and then...” He trailed off, staring at the ceiling solemnly.

“And then what?” Keith prompted, staring at Lance from where he'd dropped to sit crisscross beside him.

Blinking, the light came back into Lance's eyes. “You'll have to read the book for that, Keith. I'm not going to spoil everything!”

Keith threw his hands into the air. “You've spoiled everything else.”

Lance gasped dramatically, looking horribly affronted. “I would never! I'm not Pidge spoiling the end of a seven book series when I'm only on the fourth book. I've only told you the bare bones. You've got to read the book to really get the full immersive experience.”

Rolling his eyes, Keith pushed to his feet, holding out a hand to help Lance to his own. “How am I going to do that in the middle of space?”

“Pidge might be able to help,” Lance suggested, and before Keith could respond, he continued, “Now are we going to finish training or just keep yapping like pair of terriers?”

…..

Pidge could help, and she did. She had a small archive of downloaded books on her computer for whatever reason and for another reason neither of them could pinpoint, the book was shoved into the depths of her library among Physics and Astronomy textbooks and comics. “It must have been Lance,” she muttered irately as the book downloaded onto a small screen just larger than a cellphone. “I mean, I probably could have found it anyway. We managed to find that screen for the video game, so who's to say we wouldn't have found it in some weird vintage terrain bookstore. Whatever. Here you go. Have fun. It's definitely... something.”

Taking the tablet, Keith raised an eyebrow at her. “You've read it.”

“I did it to shut Lance up.”

Keith hummed his understanding, staring down at the screen with the book's cover filling the frame. “Well, thanks, Pidge. I'll get this back to you when I finish.” He started out of her room.

“Then I'll get it back by tomorrow, probably. That's how long it took Hunk.”

He paused, glancing back over his shoulder. “What?”

She flapped a hand at him, shooing him out the door. “You'll see. Now out. I've got things to do.”

…..

Keith did see, and he had to stop once he arrived at the part. He could hear the spy's voice ringing in his ears, sounding a little like Lance and defiant to a fault as she laughed wildly and shouted, ' _Kiss me, Hardy! Kiss me, quick!_ ' He had to pause after that, just for an hour or so, because he couldn't go too long without knowing how it all ended.

Something in him trembled with the knowledge of where the quote came from, of how it applied to the story as a whole. He was standing in the kitchen in the middle of the night cycle, a cup of tea in front of him and the tablet flipped face down on the counter. The castle was unnervingly silent after the cacophony the book had elicited in his head, and he jumped when the kitchen door hissed open again.

Lance shuffled in with bags beneath his eyes and his blue lions slippers on his feet. Yawning, he was setting a cup of tea on the counter before he realized Keith was even there. He didn't startle. Instead, he simply asked, “Couldn't sleep?”

“I was reading.” He nodded down towards the tablet.

Lance's face brightened as it always did, as bright as a star. “Pidge found the book for you?”

“Yeah...”

Staring at him for a long moment, his smile became a little sad. “Oh. You got that part.”

“Yeah...”

He sighed, shuffling a hand through his hair. “Sorry. I probably should have warned you, but... it's just not the kind of thing you can explain properly. You have to experience it, or the quote just won't make sense.”

“I definitely experienced it.” Mimicking Lance's movement, he sighed heavily. “I'm going to finish reading before the others start to wake up.”

A grin pulled at the corners of Lance's mouth. “Don't let me stop you. I'm just enjoying a cup of alien tea. Don't mind me.”

They sat in silence as Keith read, drinking tea and making more tea when their cups emptied. It was another hour before Keith finally placed the tablet back on the counter and simply wrapped his fingers around his cup. Finally, he muttered, “She left the window open for her.”

“She did.”

“I've never read Peter Pan, but... I saw that old animated movie once when I was a kid.”

Lance was quiet for a moment, waiting for Keith to continue, and when he didn't, asked, “How did you like the book?”

Keith glanced up at him, and told him exactly what he thought.

…..

Keith had never been so thoroughly torn apart and pieced back together by a book before. It reminded him of the friendships he had built with every person aboard the castle. It also reminded him of the very real possibility of the ending of all of this being one of their endings.

That terrified him, the thought of one of his new family members suddenly not being there. He told Shiro as much in the dark hours of the night when he couldn't sleep, but he kept it to himself when it came to the others. They didn't need to know that something inside of him thought every mission they went on could be one of their last.

He was determined to not allow fate not to feast on their blood.

That didn't stop him though. He trained harder, took more time to just sit and listen to them go on and on about the most mundane topics. Lance quoted the book at him every chance he could just for the simple fact that Keith would catch the references this time. They discussed the book at length for hours, and then, when they ran out of things to say, they started talking about other things, and he had never felt so comfortable around another person in his life, even Shiro. He told Lance things he had never admitted aloud, and Lance told him the ten things he was most afraid of.

Many of their fears overlapped.

It felt like a fairytale, falling into friendship with Lance. He forgot to remind himself that fairytales always have an end.

…..

Keith had Lance's baryard along with his own, and he still couldn't remember how that had happened. He sat high on a ledge, his thigh oozing dark blood and his head woozy with the loss. Still pinned down by sentries firing at him, he took them out one by one, but not fast enough to matter.

He was the only one left free, the others captured and incapacitated down below. He had tried to help them, tried to shoot the sentries surrounding them. He hadn't tried to shoot open their bonds, not with how bad of a shot he was, but he had managed to take out two of Lotor's generals by some stroke of luck.

“For each of my generals you have killed, we will mortally wound two of your fellows! You will watch them bleed out and die while you remain helpless. That will only leave one left! Thinks carefully about your next actions!” Lotor shouted, scanning towards the top of the ceiling, but still missing Keith.

Without pause, they blew out Hunk's kneecaps, removed Pidge's fingers one by one as the others screamed for her, cut off Shiro's remaining arm, and Allura... Keith hadn't seen what had happened to her as he'd clutched at his leg. She was lying on the ground when he looked back, a hand covering her face and a pool of blood growing beneath her as she clutched her stomach.

“Bring the Blue Paladin, and leave the rest. They'll be dead soon enough,” Lotor told Acxa, his one and only remaining general, “He'll be a lovely play thing.”

Lance was wild-eyed, looking for a way out of the situation they had found themselves in. As Acxa jerked him to his feet, his eyes found Keith high against the ceiling, just barely hidden save for the barrel of Lance's own rifle. Tears filled his eyes, and a wild laugh spilled from him. “KISS ME, HARDY! Kiss me, QUICK!” he cried at the top of his lungs, just as the spy had, and still, just like her, he turned his face into his shoulder away from Keith.

“What? What are you-” Lotor began, but that was when Keith pulled the trigger.

…..

“See? I knew the same thing wouldn't happen to us,” Lance gasped as he limped towards the healing pods.

“I shot you,” Keith told him miserably, holding tight to Lance's wrist where it was slung over his shoulders with bruising force, “It's only because I'm a piss poor shot that I didn't shoot you in the head.”

Turning towards Keith, Lance's face softened. “I was telling you to.”

“I know, but-”

“You saved us with your lousy shooting, Keith, and you hurt Lotor enough that Acxa took him and ran. You're the hero of the hour. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.” Lance was still smiling, his eyes glassy with blood loss and tears. Allowing Keith to guide him into the healing pod, he mumbled passed a grin, “Fly the plane, Keith.”

Keith shook his head. “This is not the time for that, Lance.”

“It's always the time, samurai.” Lance sighed as the pod door materialized into place, sealing him inside.

Coran was right behind him, ushering him into a healing pod of his own. He stared out over the others, all silent and bloody in their own pods, and he reminded himself that they were still alive. Their fairytale hadn't come to an end just yet.

“Fly the plane, Keith,” he muttered to himself as he was sealed into the pod.

 


	2. Alternate Ending

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an alternate ending, my peeps! It is not a nice ending, nor is it meant to be.

Blood. There was blood across everything. Crimson and scarlet and burgundy. Keith never knew blood could come in so many shades before that point. There was blood on his face, blood on his hands, blood dripping into his eyes. There seemed to be a lake growing across the floor from Hunk and Pidge's still forms. They had been the first, the others screaming for them at the tops of their lungs. Keith had tried to help them, but he'd been too late, just a little too slow on the trigger pull, aim just a little too off.

He wasn't accustomed to Lance's bayard, why would he be? His aim was terrible, and his specialty wasn't with firearms. He could use swords and daggers, anything with a sharp edge or two, but bullets, lasers... those were Lance's specialty. If Lance were in Keith's place, Pidge and Hunk wouldn't be dead on the floor. If Lance were in Keith's place, they wouldn't be in the situation they were in at all. Lance would have taken out Lotor, his generals, and all of the sentries before they even knew what was going on.

Lance wasn't there though. It was only Keith, and their bayards, and his friends dying beneath him.

The tears burning the back of his eyes didn't make seeing passed all of the red any better, but it did help to wash away the blood slipping passed his lashes into his eyes. Swallowing harshly, he wiped at his eyes with the back of his arm.

“Only two more paladins left, Red Paladin!” Lotor shouted to the ceiling, knowing where Keith had been shooting from, but not his exact position, “I told you for every one of my generals you killed, I would kill two of your fellow paladins.”

The only reason Keith had managed to kill his generals had been sheer dumb luck. He'd been aiming for the sentries several feet from them.

“That doesn't really work out because I still need something to show for this, but luckily, we've got someone else here. The Princess of Altea... Well, we certainly don't need her now do we?” A vicious smile curled at the corners of Lotor's mouth. “Acxa, kill the Princess of Altea and...” He glanced between Lance and Shiro for several long moments, running a strand of hair through his fingers. “The Black Paladin.”

“No!” Keith screamed, jerking forward with a cry of pain that was lost between the laser blasts and the shouts of his family. He turned away before their bodies could fall, clutching at his throbbing leg. Blood oozed from the wound, camouflaged against the red of his suit. When he looked back again, Shiro and Allura were lying side by side on the floor facing each other. He could see Shiro's face, a scream still etched into the skin around his mouth.

Lance stood beside them, staring at his best friends and the vestiges of his patched together family on the floor. Their blood was splattered across his face.

Keith couldn't tell if he was relieved or broken that Lance was the last one left alive.

“Acxa, bring the Blue Paladin,” Lotor said, and Lance's eyes jerked up, wild at the sound of his voice, “He will be a lovely play thing.”

Lance was searching wildly for a way out, eyes scanning every possible escape route when he caught sight of the barrel of his own rifle. Tears spilled over his lashes, and he laughed wetly as he met Keith's eyes. His laugh grew wilder, louder, until it was the only sound filling the cavernous space. “KISS ME, HARDY! Kiss me, QUICK!” he cried at the top of his lungs, just as the spy had, and still, just like her, he turned his face into his shoulder away from him.

“What? What are you saying?” Lotor shouted at him.

With a ragged sob, Keith sighted down the barrel and pulled the trigger. This time, he did not miss. This time, his aim was true.

…..

Coran was grim faced as he spread the last shroud over Lance's body. He was silent, tears tracking down his cheeks as he placed his hand on Allura's shoulder beneath her own shroud.

The five were laid out on pedestals side by side covered in shrouds of pale pink.

Keith stood at Lance's head, staring down at his covered face where beneath it lay still in death. Lance would never smile or laugh again. He would never trade insults or spar with Keith again. He would never talk to him about the book or calm him down after a stressful battle again. Lance was gone, and Keith had been the one to silence him.

“Keith,” Coran murmured quietly, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder, “We need to get you into a healing pod. You've bled a lot.” When Keith didn't respond, he tried again. “Keith-”

“I did it,” Keith whispered suddenly, eyes still trained on the shroud and Lance and everything he had lost in only a few hours.

“Keith, this wasn't your fault.”

“It was.” He turned to stare at Coran, eyes wide and vision blurring with tears. His breath hitched as he continued. “I-I-I killed Lance, and I cou-couldn't save the others, and... I killed Lance! Oh god!” His knees gave beneath him, dropping him to the floor where he could only clutch at Lance's shroud. “I shot Lance,” he sobbed, “He called to me. They were going to take him, and he... he... I shot Lance.”

Coran was silent for a long moment before he placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “You saved him, Keith, from whatever Lotor had planned for him. You saved him.”

Keith's sobs grew harder and louder until no sound came from him and his body mistook them for retching.

Coran tugged Keith to his feet, and guided him to the healing pods.

He was as quiet and distance as Coran by the time he leaned back into the pod. “Fly the plane, Keith,” he murmured to himself, sealed within the pod. He didn't know if he _could_ continue on anymore as the tears coursed hot down his face. He wasn't Maddie nor was he as strong as her, and he didn't know where to start to continue moving forward.

Somewhere along the way in his friendship with Lance, he'd forgotten that every fairytale has an ending.

 


End file.
